historical_eventsfandomcom-20200214-history
Kursk
Construction started: 1992 Launched: 1994 Length: 154 m K-141 Kursk (full Russian name Атомная Подводная Лодка «Курск» (АПЛ «Курск»), Atomnaya Podvodnaya Lodka "Kursk" (APL "Kursk"), meaning "Nuclear-powered submarine Kursk") was an Oscar-II class nuclear-powered cruise-missile submarine of the Russian Navy which was lost with all hands when it sank in the Barents Sea on 12 August 2000. It was a Project 949A Антей (Antey, Antaeus; NATO reporting name "Oscar II") submarine. It was named after the Russian city of Kursk, around which the largest tank battle in history, the Battle of Kursk, took place in 1943. One of the first vessels completed after the end of the Soviet Union, it was commissioned into the Russian Navy's Northern Fleet. Kursk joined the "Summer-X" exercise, the first large-scale naval exercise planned by the Russian Navy in more than a decade, on 10 August 2000. It included 30 ships including the fleet's flagship Pyotr Velikiy ("Peter the Great"), four attack submarines, and a flotilla of smaller ships. The crew had recently won a citation for its excellent performance and been recognized as the best submarine crew in the Northern Fleet. While it was an exercise, Kursk loaded a full complement of combat weapons. It was one of the few ships authorized to carry a combat load at all times. On the first day of the exercise, Kursk successfully launched a Granit missile armed with a dummy warhead.mTwo days later, on the morning of 12 August, she prepared to fire dummy torpedoes at the Kirov-class battlecruiser Pyotr Velikiy. These practice torpedoes had no explosive warheads and were manufactured and tested at a much lower quality standard. On 12 August 2000, at 11:28 local time (07:28 UTC), there was an explosion while preparing to fire. The Russian Navy's final report on the disaster concluded the explosion was due to the failure of one of Kursk's hydrogen peroxide-fueled Type 65 torpedoes. A subsequent investigation concluded that HTP, a form of highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide used as propellant for the torpedo, seeped through a faulty weld in the torpedo casing.mWhen HTP comes in contact with a catalyst, it rapidly expands by a factor of 5000, generating vast quantities of steam and oxygen. The pressure produced by the expanding HTP ruptured the kerosene fuel tank in the torpedo and set off an explosion equal to 100–250 kilograms (220–550 lb) of TNT. The submarine sank in relatively shallow water, bottoming at 108 metres (354 ft) about 135 km (84 mi) off Severomorsk, at 69°40′N 37°35′E. A second explosion 135 seconds after the initial event was equivalent to 3-7 tons of TNT. The explosions blew a large hole in the hull and collapsed the first three compartments of the sub, killing or incapacitating all but 23 of the 118 personnel on board. Though the American, British and Norwegian navies offered assistance, Russia refused all help. All 118 sailors and officers aboard Kursk died. The Russian Admiralty initially told the public that the majority of the crew died within minutes of the explosion, but on 21 August Norwegian and Russian divers found 24 bodies in the ninth compartment, the turbine room at the stern of the boat. Captain-lieutenant Dmitri Kolesnikov wrote a note listing the names of 23 sailors who were alive in the compartment after the ship sank. Kursk carried a potassium superoxide cartridge of a chemical oxygen generator, used to absorb carbon dioxide and chemically release oxygen during an emergency. However, the cartridge became contaminated with sea water and the resulting chemical reaction caused a flash fire which consumed the available oxygen. The investigation showed that some men temporarily survived the fire by plunging under water, as fire marks on the bulkheads indicated the water was at waist level at the time. Ultimately, the remaining crew burned to death or suffocated. Russian President Vladimir Putin, though immediately informed of the tragedy, was told by the navy that they had the situation under control and rescue was imminent. He waited five days before he ended his holiday at a presidential resort in Sochi on the Black Sea. Only four months into his tenure as President, the public and media were extremely critical of Putin's decision to remain at a seaside resort, and his highly favourable ratings dropped dramatically. The President's response appeared callous and the government's actions looked incompetent. A year later he said, "I probably should have returned to Moscow, but nothing would have changed. I had the same level of communication both in Sochi and in Moscow, but from a PR point of view I could have demonstrated some special eagerness to return."